A Different Kind of Battle
by Feirdra
Summary: While Rei and Salima were having their little talk that night... what were Kai and Kane up to? A contest of wills, nothing more and nothing less. - Kai x Kane... well, kinda


**// A Different Kind of Battle**

The evening was quiet and cool.   
The sound of footsteps seemed to fill the silence from end to end. The occasional breeze whistled its tortuous way round weary ankles and the branches whispered secrets back and forth.   
In the shadows cradling the bridge, something stirred.   
The footsteps stopped.   
"You do know what your teammate's up to while you're out here strolling, don't you?"   
Sharp eyes narrowed, slivers of aquamarine.   
"And what about yours?" he retorted, crossing his arms triumphantly in the stained glass wash of the streetlamp. "_Kai_."   
A flash of burning sienna in the darkness, then a sardonic chuckle as the shadows shifted, flowing and ebbing about the one who emerged.   
"Think you're so clever, do you?" Stormcloud hair waved softly as he strode easily forward, challenging. "I'm sorry, I can't seem to remember your name."   
He ignored the snide tone, holding out his hand. "I'm Kane."   
Kai surveyed the proffered hand dubiously, then reluctantly grasped it, and promptly dropped it again. He turned his back on his companion and walked to the railing of the bridge. "Sure. Whatever."   
"Hey, don't be like that." Turquoise brushed cloud as Kane came to stand by his side. The hollow rush of river water colored the night beyond.   
Kai was silent, gazing out at something across the water.   
Kane followed his gaze. "Oh," he said simply. His hands tightened on the biting ice of the rail.   
On the distant shore, fire and midnight swayed in the grass side by side, blossoms twain dancing.   
"Do you know what they're talking about?" Kai's question took Kane by surprise, and it took him quite a bit of staring to digest it.   
His faintly comical confusion slipped away easily as water through a sieve, and he turned back to the water, speaking to the wind, "Yeah. Yeah, I do."   
"Fools," Kai spat, startling his companion once again. He spoke not with contempt, but exasperation. His hands clenched into fists around the rail. "What are they thinking? If it were that easy... But Rei," he paused, burning dark eyes darting to Kane before turning back to the panorama, "he's always been a hopeless idealist."   
"Yeah," Kane murmured. He was staring down into the lost depths of the river below. "Salima too. She's always hoping, y'know? Hoping for a way that's best for everyone."   
"You care for her." Kane went rigid. Slowly, aquamarine slid up to meet amused sienna. Kai just smirked knowingly.   
"So what if I do?" Kane countered hotly. "I don't see why it's any of your concern."   
"True." Kai turned away, seemingly nonchalant, but waiting.   
"But," came the whisper, "she... I... I'm too _monochromatic_." Self-deprecating laughter tore at his throat. He was on his knees, his chin resting on the freezing rail, eyes sad. Suddenly, he whirled, pleading, desperate, turning to the only person he could. Kai.   
"How do you do it?" The despair in his voice startled even the stoic captain of the Bladebreakers. "How can you be leader and still _hold on to yourself_, Kai?" The rawness of emotion behind the question made it clear that this was something that had been eating at the young captain for a very long time. Too long.   
A ringing silence followed his words. Kai stood stiff and unresponsive as a leaden statue.   
"Answer me, Kai!" Kane stared down at his shaking fists, gripping at thin air. "_Answer_ me!"   
"You're pathetic," came the low growl from the cold, immovable figure before him. Kai crossed his arms, but did not even turn around.   
Kane froze, myriad emotions flying through the glittering blue eyes. One stood out: hurt. Terrible, broken _hurt_. He should have expected it; in fact, he had. But he couldn't stop himself; stop it from spilling forth, "Kai... wha- _what_-" He swallowed and closed his eyes against the image of that uncaring back.   
"I said, you're _pathetic_!" In a flash, Kai had finally turned around- and he had slammed Kane against the lamppost, hands mercilessly twisting into the other's collar. He ignored the wide, uncomprehending eyes. He ignored the pale, haggard face. Blood red bore furiously into splintered cyanite, close enough to touch. "What kind of team captain are you, crumbling so easily, and for one of your own _teammates_, no less? Listen to me. No, _listen to me_," Kai said fiercely, jerking at the collar as Kane looked away. "_Every_ team captain, every _good_ team captain who gives a damn about anything will start taking on _some_ of the characteristics of their teammates, _and vice versa_. Believe me, you idiot, I've had more than my share of experience. So either you get over yourself, or you forget about being a team captain, because you're just too damn _pathetic_ to make the cut." Kai released him, or rather tossed him off, and began to walk away, hands in pockets, as though nothing had happened.   
"_You_ shouldn't talk," came a low voice behind him, "when _you're_ so hung up over Rei you can barely _talk_ to him, let alone _tell_ him."   
Kai stopped. He _stopped_.   
"What did you say?" His voice was quiet, toneless and definitely dangerous. Kane frankly couldn't care less. He'd seen all of the slender boy's muscles go taut the moment he spoke that name, and he felt a morbid sense of satisfaction in doing that to the seeming ice prince.   
"You're in love with Rei." A quiet laugh. "It's so painfully obvious. Guess we're _both_ losers, huh?"   
A blur of purple, and Kane winced as he was once again crushed against the lamppost. Kai looked down on him though they were about the same height, a glint of cruelty surfacing in those bottomless red eyes. Kane shivered, truly afraid for the first time during the entire encounter. Kai's entire demeanor had changed in a split second, with no apparent shift in expression.   
"Hey, what're you-" Kane would never finish that sentence. Kai's lips crashed down on his with bruising force, and Kane was suddenly drowning in a stormy sea of blood-tinted clouds. Kai took advantage of his stunned lack of response to snake a ravaging tongue between the trembling lips he had claimed. That first kiss was furious, feverish, desperate and somehow compassionate, all at the same time. Kane could barely gather enough of his senses to move, and he felt his knees buckling under the sheer shattering _power_ of the kiss, but he wasn't about to stay docile and take it. Once he'd figured out what was happening, he promptly returned the favor, savagely attacking Kai's mouth with tongue, teeth and the two combined.   
At that, Kai abruptly pulled away, and everything stopped.   
Silence. A complete, utter silence that seemed to encompass the whole world and all of time as they stared at each other in disbelief, one dazed, the other shocked beyond all measure. They had slid down the lamppost and ended up in a tangled heap of clothing and boy on the ground.   
Kane made a move to get up, but Kai was immovable, sprawled on top of him. The cruel light suddenly returned to Kai's eye, and he smirked, predatory. Kane merely glared back from under a ridiculously disheveled mass of turquoise hair. It was enough.   
They growled like wild animals, grasping at each other, their lips colliding again and again and again and then once more... They rolled across the bridge, locked in a very different kind of battle.   
At last they came to a stop once more at the foot of the lamppost, dripping blood and sweat.   
Kane stared up at Kai with glazed eyes that suddenly snapped into focus under the blinding glare of the streetlamp. Aquamarine widened briefly, then threw sparks as he shoved Kai off with surprising strength considering what they had just gone through.   
"_Shit_." Kane hissed as he wiped his mouth, smearing fresh blood across his cheek. "You _bastard_."   
But Kai was already walking away, leaving a thin dark trail on the concrete. He paused. "Still think this is a game? There's no losing... there is no winning... _and there are no ties_." He vanished into the shadows, speaking so quietly only they and the wind caught his words, "So I can barely talk to Rei, huh?" His twisted grin slipped into oblivion.   
Kane gazed after him for a long time, a strange new light gleaming like a knife's edge amid shards of lapis lazuli. His tone, when he spoke, was subdued, "No. It isn't a game anymore, Kai..."   
It changed with frightening suddenness with his next words, as he too turned and walked from the bridge, "So... I'm not _strong_ enough for you, am I..."   
  
-   
  
Fwee... so it ended up being Kai/Kane with Kai/Rei and Kane/Salima on the side. Neither of which are pairings I support, which is very odd.   
Keep in mind that Kane thought he only liked girls... Kai just confused the crap outta him. X3   
This is what you get after about 2-3 hours of scribbling unrelentingly in my notebook.

And I know the title is clichéd. Oh, well.

I blame my posting this raw on JuliTina and LBx. =P Shame on you guys.

Oh, yeah, also… Review.


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